


the liberation of napoleon the skeleton

by Rhyolite



Series: magic & bananas [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 05:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhyolite/pseuds/Rhyolite
Summary: Should Jehan involve Eponine's younger brother in plausibly-illegal attempts to liberate a skeleton? Probably not. Is he going to involve Eponine's younger brother in plausibly illegal attempts to liberate a skeleton? Yes, because ofskeletons."We need backup," Gavroche says.Jehan agrees. "I'll text Marius. I don't think that he has a lot of work today."Or, Jehan, Marius, and Gavroche liberate a fake skeleton from Gavroche's school.





	the liberation of napoleon the skeleton

Jehan first hears about the skeleton when he's accompanying Gavroche from school to Joly, Bossuet, Musichetta, and Grantaire's house, because Eponine got stuck with an extra shift in the place where she works, and it's more convenient for her to pick him up from there instead of Jehan's apartment. It also gives Jehan an excuse to raid Joly's collection of snacks, which nearly rivals his own.

 

"Fine," Gavroche says, in response to Jehan's question of 'how was school?' "They threw away the skeleton, and I threw my eraser at a kid."

 

For a minute, Jehan's torn between grim fascination about the throwing of the school supplies or the skeleton, and then he realizes that both is an option. "What skeleton? Why did you throw the eraser?" 

 

“He deserved it,” Gavroche says.

 

Jehan has no doubts that the kid deserved it: Gavroche isn't the kind of person who'd throw eraser at someone who wasn't being a jerk. He is, however, the kind of person who wouldn't hesitate to throw a eraser at a person who deserved it. Eponine probably taught him that. 

 

She probably gave him tips on how to best throw erasers for maximum impact.

 

Gavroche kicks his heels against the plastic seat of the metro, and continues in a rush, "He said that anyone who couldn't just pick one element and stick with it is stupid, and I'll end up not being able to use either. So I threw my eraser at him, and pushed it with a bunch of air so that it'd go faster. And maybe a teeny tiny bit of fire, too." 

 

Jehan can imagine it: Gavroche, guiding  the flaming eraser to its target, and then pleading innocence when questioned.

 

Yeah, that's definitely something Eponine taught him how to do. Jehan's seen her do the same trick that Gavroche's describing, just not with erasers.

 

"What happened?"

 

"It hit him in the shoulder," Gavroche says with satisfaction. "And since the teacher wasn't paying attention, I said it was an accident and got away with it since I'd put out the flames fast enough so that they just scared him instead of lighting his shirt on fire." 

 

"Nice," Jehan says, and then wonders if he should be encouraging the throwing of erasers at jerks. He should be, he decides. It'll help teach them to not be jerks. Enjolras would be proud. "What'd you say about the skeleton that got thrown away? Was it a real one?"

 

"It was one of those full-sized plastic ones," Gavroche explans, "but for some reason since it's got a few broken bones they're throwing it away."

 

Jehan's always wanted one of those full-sized plastic model skeletons, actually. Bossuet and Joly have promised to get one if they ever see one, but since that hasn't happened yet and Gavroche's school doesn't want this one... 

 

"Do you know where they put it?" he says, hopeful. 

 

"Yeah," Gavroche says. "It's just in the Dumpster behind the cafeteria. It's not like they're incinerating it or anything."

 

"Perfect," Jehan mutters to himself, and then, "Is the Dumpster inside the gate or anything?"

 

Gavroche catches on. "You want to steal it, don't you?"

 

"Liberate," Jehan corrects. "From the cruel death of languishing in a landfill."

 

"Cool," Gavroche says. "I'm helping."

 

"Great," Jehan says. Should he involve Eponine's younger brother in plausibly-illegal attempts to liberate a skeleton? Probably not. Is he going to involve Eponine's younger brother in plausibly illegal attempts to liberate a skeleton? Yes, because of  _ skeletons _ .

 

"We need backup," Gavroche says.

 

Jehan agrees. "I'll text Marius. I don't think that he has a lot of work today."

 

"Skeletons are better than translation, anyway," Gavroche says.

... 

When Marius's phone dings, he's deep in the middle of a translation that has  been giving him trouble for the last few days. He's just gotten started on it, just started typing, when his phone dings. (It's the default text tone.  _ Why does your phone have the default text tone still?  _ Courfeyrac has asked more than once. Marius usually just shrugs, because it's a text tone. How important is it?)

 

Marius shakes his head, and translates another few paragraphs before he remembers that his phone dinged because he got a text.

 

He looks at the screen, which tells him that Jehan's texted him that he needs to go to Joly, Bossuet, Musichetta, and Grantaire's house, because he is needed for a Thing. The word ‘thing’ is capitalized, which, Marius thinks, probably is meant to convey importance. 

 

(The fact that he’s analyzing the capitalization of text messages like this probably means that he's been analyzing language too much, and that he probably needs to take a break, the Courfeyrac-influenced part of his brain says. He rubs his eyes.)

 

_ What?  _ he texts back.  _ What 'Thing?' _

 

_ ur almost like enjolras, _ Jehan writes back,  _ w/ capitalization & punctuation. _

 

Marius sends  _ Is it an emergency? Is someone hurt? _ and waits. He hopes it isn’t an emergency.

 

_ no, _ Jehan replies. but its still important.  _ its an important mission. justice. _

 

_ Can I come over in thirty minutes? _ Marius says. That way he can try to do fifteen minutes of translation, and then take another fifteen minutes to drive over.

 

Jehan takes a minute to reply. Maybe Marius shouldn't have asked. Maybe it's something that can't wait thirty minutes, and now Jehan's going to be mad that Marius asked that he asked if he could wait thirty minutes. Maybe...

 

_ yeah, _ Jehan says.  _ see u then. _

 

Marius lets out his breath.  _ Okay _ , he sends.

 

…

 

Forty minutes later (he got caught up in the translation, and then in traffic), Marius rings the doorbell, the button of which has, for some reason, been covered in emoji-patterned duct tape.

 

_ Does that mean that it doesn't work? _ he wonders, and then presses it anyway. He hears the sound of a rooster crowing from inside the house (he assumes that that's the noise it's supposed to make).

 

A minute goes by, and he’s just wondering if anyone’s home when Jehan opens the door just wide enough to grab his arm and drag him into the house.

 

"We need help with a Thing," Jehan says. Marius can hear the capitalization, almost as clearly as he's aware of the fact that there are wooden spoons in the kitchen, and that they are slowly drawing closer to him. He shoves his awareness of all the wooden things in the house to the back of his head, and, thankfully, they stop moving. Jehan doesn't appear to have noticed. Probably since he can’t see into the kitchen from where he’s standing.

 

Jehan doesn't appear to have noticed the fact that Marius was nearly a magnet for things made out of wood. "Gav, done with your homework?" he asks.

 

"Yeah," Gavroche says. "Mostly."

 

Jehan looks at him. "We're not going to get the skeleton until you finish your homework."

 

"Wait,  _ skeleton _ ?" Marius asks. No one said anything about skeletons. Is this going to be something illegal? Are they going to dig up someone's grave or something? "You said that it was an 'important mission for justice.'"

  
  


"It is," Jehan says.

 

"We're going to steal a skeleton," Gavroche says.

 

Jehan pokes Gavroche with his toe. 

 

Gavroche looks at Jehan's socks. Marius also looks at Jehan's socks. They somehow have flowers, and plaid, and paisleys.

 

"What do you mean steal a _ skeleton? _ " Marius says, bringing the conversation back to the important subjects at hand. "Are we going to dig up someone's grave?"

 

"Nope," Jehan says, sounding like he could possibly be convinced to dig up someone's grave if Marius so desired. "Gav's school threw out a skeleton, so we're going to go rescue it from the dumpster."

 

Marius looks at the door. "Isn't that illegal?"

 

"No," Gavroche says. "I think. I mean, they don't want it anyway."

 

Jehan grabs Marius's sleeve, and pulls him toward the door. "C'mon. It'll be fun."

 

"Wait," Gavroche says, and grabs his backpack and roots through it. He finds a rain hat, and jams it into his pocket. "There."

 

Marius looks at the sky through the window. "I don't think that it'll rain."

 

"It will," Gavroche says.

 

Jehan looks at Marius's car. "I don't think your car will fit three people and a skeleton," he says.

 

"Oh," Marius says. "Yeah." His car barely fits two people, he knows. It would  _ definitely  _ not fit three people and a skeleton.

 

"We'll take the metro," Gavroche says. "Come on, let's go."

 

"Isn't carrying a skeleton on public transport going to be suspicious?" Marius asks. 

 

"It'll be fine," Jehan says says. "I bet that no one will even say anything."

 

"Okay," Marius says doubtfully. Maybe skeletons are a normal thing on the metro. 

 

(He doesn't take the metro a lot. It's the fact that parts of it travel through artificial wormhole things that make the shortest distance between two points not a line, mostly. Combeferre's tried to say that it's in fact much safer than traveling in a car, but Marius still prefers driving.)

 

One metro ride and a short walk later, they're at Gavroche's school, which appears to be empty.

 

Marius gulps. "I'm not sure that this is a good idea."

 

Jehan pats Marius on the shoulder. "If something's in the dumpster, it means that they want it to disappear. We're doing them a  _ favor _ ."

 

Gavroche grins. "You're officially part of team rescue-the-skeleton. You signed the paper."

 

Marius remembers the distinct absence of paper-signing in this admittedly bizarre afternoon. “I didn’t sign a paper.”

 

“Yeah, you did,” Gavroche says. “In spirit.”

 

“You don’t even have to be the one to take the skeleton out of the dumpster,” Jehan reassures him.

 

Marius still looks worried, but trails along behind Gavroche he leads them to the alley behind the school - where the dumpster should be, but isn't. 

 

"It's supposed to be right here," Gavroche says. 

 

"Oh," Marius says, and then says, "Well, I guess we can't get the skeleton."

 

Gavroche rolls his eyes, and points through the chain-link fence at a large, red Dumpster. Jehan can see one of the skeleton's hands draped over the side. "It's right there. We just have to climb the fence and get it."

 

"That is definitely illegal," Marius hums under his breath.

 

Gavroche ignores him, grabs the fance, scrambles, squirrel-like over it, is suddenly on the other side. "C'mon," he says.

 

Jehan follows, albeit with a little more caution: he doesn't want to rip his poncho. Courfeyrac knitted his poncho, and it's his favorite - soft, warm, with lime green and orange stripes.

 

Once he's over, he waves at Marius who's looking more than ready to leave. "It's pretty low," he says.

 

"Okay," Maius agrees doubtfully, and pulls himself up. He pauses for a minute, and then lets go. Jehan flinches at the sound to tearing fabric that accompanies his drop to the ground.

 

"Are you okay?"

 

Marius checks his arms and legs for scrapes, and finds that he's ripped his sleeve. "I ripped my sleeve" he says sadly. 

 

Gavroche, already next to the Dumpster, nods solemnly. "We all must make sacrifices."

 

"I'll sew it up when we get to my apartment," Jehan promises. 

 

Marius walks toward the dumpster. “Thanks.”

 

Jehan follows. "Hold that steady?" he asks Marius, pointing at a large trash can. 

 

"Yeah, why?" Marius asks. He grabs the can around the middle. 

 

Jehan doesn't reply: instead he scrambles onto the trash can. He peers into the dumpster, and then does something that he knows won't work: he reaches out with that  _ particular  _ part of his mind that does magic, and  _ pulls _ . 

 

The skeleton jerks toward him, and both Marius and Gavroche jump. Jehan’s almost too surprised to jump, but he flinches, which, along with Marius’s reaction to seeing the skeleton move, tips the can that Jehan's kneeling on. Jehan yelps, and grabs onto the edge of the dumpster to stabilize himself.

 

"Sorry," Marius says, and grabs the trash can again. “Wait, why is the skeleton real? You said it was fake.”

 

"It's  _ real? _ " Jehan repeats. It shouldn’t be real. It doesn’t look real. 

 

But then, he was able to control it. And he can only control real bone. 

 

Not that having an actual human skeleton in his living room wouldn't be cool, but in that case it might be better to bury the poor thing. 

 

"No," Gavroche says, standing on tiptoes and looking over the edge of the dumpster. "It says 'made in China' on one of the ribs."

 

"Weird," Jehan says. He just controlled a fake skeleton. Huh. That ability could be useful.

 

"Wait, can't you only control real bone?" Marius asks.

 

"Yeah," Jehan says. "That's why this is weird. Okay, I'm going to try to lift it out of the dumpster. Don't freak out."

 

Gavroche gives him a thumbs up. Marius nods, already looking rather freaked-out, and Jehan reaches out again.

 

He can't grab the skeleton anymore. It feels exactly like when he tries to control something that isn't bone: his magic just slides away from it. 

 

He swears under his breath.

 

_ I could do it before,  _ he thinks. _ Okay. Pretend it’s real. It's bone. I can control bone.  _ He breathes in, and tries to convince himself that the skeleton is not, in fact, fake, but real bone that he can control. 

 

For a minute it lights up in his awareness in the way that real bone does. He grabs at it, and it lifts up.  _ Careful _ , he thinks, and ignores the sound of Gavroche cheering. Carefully, he brings it up, up, over, and then he loses control of it and it crashes to the ground. 

 

His perception of the things that his magic likes snaps back to the normal ignorable level that it usually is: he can sense both Marius and Gavroche nearby, and maybe someone in the school, but now he can't feel plastic skeletons. 

 

He sighs, and breathes for a minute to slow down his heart rate before climbing back onto the ground. He feels like he's just ran the distance from the dance to the dumpster. Apparently, controlling plastic bone takes more energy than regular bone. 

 

_ Makes sense, _ he thinks.

 

Once he's off the trash can, he looks at the skeleton that they've rescued. Thankfully, it doesn't appear worse off for the drop that he just put it through or the time it spent in the dumpster. 

 

"Come on," Marius says. "Let's go."

 

Jehan nods, and, with Gavroche's help, hauls the skeleton upright so that they can push it along on its wheeled base. Its legs tap the metal pole holding it upright, as if it's doing a bizarre tap dance.

 

"Can you lift it up over the fence?" Gavroche asks.

 

Jehan shrugs. "Probably, but I don't think that I could do that and lift myself over the fence. Here, Marius, you climb back over first, and Gav and I'll pass it over to you."

 

"Okay," Marius says, and climbs back over, managing not to rip any more articles of clothing on the way.

 

The skeleton isn't heavy, just unwieldy, so between the three of them they manage to get it over the fence with minimal effort. 

 

One they’re all over the fence (Gavroche’s the last one over, and once again manages to remind Jehan strongly of a small woodland mammal), they set off the skeleton in tow, wheels rattling as it’s dragged across the pavement.

 

The metro proves to be as uneventful as predicted.

 

After the debate about whether a person-sized piece of baggage (the skeleton) needs its own ticket, of course. 

 

And the struggle to lift said ticket less person-sized piece of person-sized baggage over the ticket gate, but it isn’t  _ that  _ bad _. _

 

“A true piece of cake,” Gavroche says, and then grabs wildly at the train starts moving and the skeleton threatens to crash into an innocent bystander. Jehan does the same, and somehow between the two of them disaster is averted.

 

The dance of gradually easing up one’s grip on the skeleton, forgetting it has wheels and then remembering suddenly as it tries to attack someone are repeated all the way to Jehan’s apartment, where they’ve decided to go because if the skeleton enters Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta’s house it may never leave.

 

The walk from the not-really-near-at-all metro stop nearest Jehan’s apartment is its own type of uneventful: no one actually says anything, but they get plenty of looks. Most of them are  _ you’ve got a skeleton, that’s cool  _ looks or huh,  _ you’ve got a skeleton, why do you have a skeleton? _ looks, but they get a few  _ Aaa! You've got a skeleton! I don’t like skeletons! _ Looks.

 

Gavroche just grins, and tells anyone who will listen that the skeleton is for an interior design project that he’s working on, since he just got his degree.

 

…

 

When they get off of the metro, Marius’s stomach is slightly unsettled from popping in and out of reality (how Gavroche explained the wormholes to him), but settles down as soon as the climb the steps back to street level.

 

“I thought that you could only control real bone,” Gavroche says accusingly as soon as they’re the slightest distance away from the station.

 

“Me too,” Jehan says. “I just did it by accident, and then tried to convince myself that I’d be able to move it, and it moved.”

 

Marius nods. “I’ve done that before.” Actually, he didn’t realize that other people  _ didn’t _ know that it was possible. He used to to it all the time when he lived with his grandfather.

 

“What? Controlled plastic skeletons?” Gavroche asks.

 

“Convinced myself that I should be able to control something, and then controlled it,” Marius explains.

 

“Huh,” Gavroche says. 

 

“Maybe that means that magic is more about what we think we can control than what we actually control,” Jehan says, and gets out his phone.

 

Marius shrugs. 

 

“Who’re you texting?” Gavroche asks, peering at Jehan’s phone. 

 

“Combeferre,” Jehan says. “He might want to know about this.”

 

When they get to Jehan’s apartment, they decide to take the skeleton up the stairs, because the elevator is untrustworthy and old. After three flights of stairs and two stares from other people (each time, Marius is seized with warring the needs to apologize and not apologize because Jehan and Gavroche might think that he’d being silly for apologizing), they get to Jehan’s apartment. 

 

Jehan unlocks it, and pulls open the door, letting a strip of light illuminate his tiny, comfortably cluttered living room.

 

Marius steps inside. Gavroche (dragging the skeleton) follows Jehan is last, and closes the door behind him, casting the apartment into complete darkness. _ What happened to the windows? _ Marius wonders. 

 

"Sorry," Jehan's disembodied voice says through the darkness of his living room, "I'll turn on a light."

 

There's a click, and suddenly about ten lamps turn on. Marius wonders why Jehan has so many lamps. 

 

"They're from second hand stores, mostly," Jehan says. "I see a cool one and then I buy it, and then I realize that I already have fifteen. That one's from Grantaire, actually, the one that's shaped like a snake."

 

Marius looks over at the lamp in question. It is indeed shaped like a snake, one that's coiled around a potted plant. Maybe it's a tomato plant? It's probably a tomato plant, Marius decides. 

 

Behind the lamp and plant is the answer to why no light was coming in through the windows: there are brightly covered squares of fabric hung over them, thick enough to block any light and colorful enough to give the impression of some kind of jewel-encrusted grotto. With fabric instead of jewels, and an apartment instead of a cave. The metaphor isn’t perfect.

 

"Where should I put the skeleton?" Gavroche asks. "I mean, unless you want it in the middle of your living room carpet."

 

Jehan looks at it, and seems to consider the possibility. "Nah," he says. "Let's put it in that corner there."

 

Under Jehan's instructions, Marius dislodges a cat that's apparently named after a bon and belongs to Joly (it's a long story, he's told), avoids a different cat's attempted attack on his knees, and a stack of books. He puts them on the coffee table, and manages to knock down one of the stacks of things already stacked on the coffee table. 

 

He does his best to put them where he thinks that they were. Hopefully they are where they were.

 

Jehan, meanwhile, situates the skeleton to his liking. It appears to be staring, somewhat malevolently, at Marius. The words 'made in China' are obscured by a velvet cape that's been produced out of thin air.

 

Gavroche looks at it, and nods approvingly. "Good."

 

"Yeah," Jehan says. "It needs a name. Marius, you name it."

 

Marius searches for a name, and is unsuccessful. He twists his hands, and then thinks about the paper he was translating he got roped into the theft of the skeleton, something about Napoleon’s escape from Elba. "Napoleon?"

 

Gavroche grows with laughter. "Yes! It will be Napoleon the Skeleton!"

 

Jehan laughs as well, and agrees. "Just don't tell Enjolras.” 

 

Jehan produces a wad of brightly colored embroidery floss and a needle from some surface in the living room. “Here, Marius, your shirt."

 

"What about my shirt?" Marius asks, and then remembers that his sleeve is torn. "Oh. Yeah." He holds out his arm. 

 

Jehan sews up the tear with three shades embroidery floss. "There."

 

Marius looks at it. The seam is  _ very  _ colorful. "Thanks," he says.

 

The trip (sans skeleton) back to Grantaire, Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta's house is truly uneventful, which Marius is grateful for, and they even get there only ten minutes after Eponine was supposed to pick Gavroche up.

 

… 

 

(Enjolras eventually finds out about Napoleon's name. At first he talks about glorifying dead tyrants, but with a suggestion from Combeferre, he soon, to Marius's visible relief, moves onto the skeleton being a symbol for the death of monarchy and tyranny.)

**Author's Note:**

> Also known as the first in this series without a food-based name, for some reason.
> 
> Comments make me super happy. <3


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